Divergent from Four's POV -- Part 2
by Windchimed
Summary: This is a 2-part story that retells "Divergent" from Four/Tobias' POV. I used Tobias' voice from the short stories, which is different from the 3rd book, because that's the voice I started with and because I prefer it (it's more complex and easier to tell apart from Tris'). Both parts have some chapters; I don't know if I'll add more or not.
1. Chapter 25 (Four's Fear Landscape)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world or any of the characters. Those belong to Veronica Roth. (I'm glad, because I like how she writes!) Also, since this story retells part of Divergent from another character's perspective, most of the dialogue also belongs to Veronica Roth._

**Chapter Twenty-Five **

I'm leaving it up to her. It's a relief when I finally come to that conclusion and can stop trying to think of how to invite her into my fear landscape. There's just no good way to start that conversation. Every approach I've thought of would lead to awkward questions from her, or from the other initiates, or worst of all, from Eric. Instead, I'll make sure she notices me going there, and then it will be her decision whether to follow me or not. I don't know which possibility makes me more nervous.

I spend the evening hanging around the Pit, keeping an eye on Tris from a distance. She spends the time with Christina and Will, getting tattoos and later throwing papers into the chasm. I'm curious about that one, but I can't tell what papers they're tossing or why from where I am, and I choose not to move closer. I do notice what Tris mentioned, though – Will and Christina exchange frequent touches. Good. That definitely works for me.

As it gets later, the Pit gradually empties of people, and I see my opportunity. I begin walking slowly, smoothly from the floor of the Pit toward the glass ceiling. I take my time, giving Tris plenty of opportunity to notice me, watching out of the corner of my eye to see if she does. When I'm half-way up, she moves away from her friends and heads after me. My heart beats faster. She's made her choice, I tell myself. It's what I wanted, what I had decided on, but still some panic flares at the prospect. Soon, she'll know I left Abnegation because I'm a coward. She'll look at me with scorn, or even worse, pity.

I force myself to continue climbing at the same pace, telling myself again that she deserves to know who I am. And who knows, maybe honesty will work as well this time as it did at Al's service. I think of the feel of her arms around me then, my lips on her forehead, her warm body pressed against me. That's why I'm doing this.

I cross the glass floor into the monitoring room and program the computer for my fear landscape. My hands shake a little. That's not surprising; I've kept my secrets for many years, after all. It's not going to be easy to share them.

I take one syringe out of the black box I'm carrying and stand, facing the door to the landscape, waiting. For a moment, there's no sound, and I think maybe she's changed her mind and turned back. Maybe I'll have another night to decide if I really want this. Then I hear her footsteps at the top of the metal stairs and know it's time. I don't turn around.

"Since you're here," I say, still not looking at her, "you might as well go in with me." It's one of the hardest things I've ever said.

I can hear the hesitation in her voice. "Into your fear landscape?" she asks.

"Yes."

She walks toward me, saying, "I can do that?"

"The serum connects you to the program." It's easier to be calm when I'm explaining technical details. "But the program determines whose landscape you go through. And right now, it's set to put us through mine."

"You would let me see that?"

It's difficult to get myself to answer. My voice is quiet when I finally succeed, and my eyes remain locked on the floor. "Why else do you think I'm going in? There are some things I want to show you."

I extend my hand and offer her the syringe. My eyes lift enough to see her, but without meeting her gaze. I'm not that brave right now.

She watches me for a moment and then tilts her head to expose her neck, accepting my invitation. I try not to think as I insert the needle, pushing the contents in. It's too late to turn back now. My eyes finally lift to her face, and I offer her the black box. She examines the other syringe hesitantly.

"I've never done this before," she says quietly. It's clear she wants me to give myself the shot, and I certainly could. I've done it dozens of times, but somehow I need her to do this. I'll be exposing so much of myself – it seems right to start by exposing my throat to her, trusting it to her hands.

I press my fingernail to my neck and say, "Right here."

She stands on tiptoes to reach. I know I should at least lean over, make it easier for her, but I'm too frozen with fear. So, I just stand there and make her stretch. Her hands shake a little as she inserts the needle, but she does it right. She does most things right. Please handle this whole simulation right…

My hands shake too as I put the syringes away in the box and set it by the door. For a moment, I close my eyes, drawing strength from deep inside, and then turn to her and extend my empty hand. It's not a conscious act, really – I just want her hand in mine, want to borrow some of her strength to get me through this. She immediately laces her fingers with mine, holding on firmly as I open the door, as we enter the dark room.

"See if you can figure out why they call me Four," I say quietly as the door clicks shut behind us, leaving us in utter blackness. I feel her move closer to my side, feel the electricity as her arm presses against mine.

"What's your real name?" she asks.

"See if you can figure that out too," I murmur.

Then, the simulation begins. We're on top of the building, far, far above the ground. The building gets taller every time I come in here, every time I get a little better at handling this fear. That's the nature of the simulation, after all.

The sun glares overhead, and the wind begins, so powerful that I'm sure it's going to blow us right over the edge. Tris leans against me, and I release her hand, place my arm around her shoulders instead, pulling us together. We're stronger against the wind that way. I'm stronger when we're like this.

The fear has taken full hold now, and it's difficult to breathe. My head spins with vertigo, and I know I'm going to faint, going to lose my balance, going to fall. I try to force air in and out through my mouth. It would be easier if I could unclench my teeth.

"We have to jump off, right?" she asks, yelling over the wind. No, I think fiercely, I don't want to do that, but I nod.

"On three, okay?" she continues. I'm not ready yet. The fear is still too strong. My heart is still pounding too fast. The computer won't register it, and I'll fall forever, I'll die on the street so far below me. But again I nod. Some distant, objective part of my brain knows that she's right, that this will get me past the fear sooner, that I should just do this and get it over with.

"One…two…_three_!" she yells, and she begins running toward the edge, pulling me with her. For a moment, panic holds my limbs locked tight, and then I'm running with her, letting her movement guide me, letting my adrenaline go, trusting her to lead me. We race off the edge together, hurtling toward the ground in free fall. My heart pounds and pounds, and I close my eyes tight, thinking over and over, this is a simulation, it isn't real, it isn't real.

Finally, the computer registers that I faced my fear, that I jumped, and the first part of the simulation ends. I'm on the floor, gasping, struggling to pull air into my starving lungs. I press a hand to my chest, trying to push away the pain, to slow my heartbeat back to normal.

It takes me a moment to remember that Tris is there, that I'm not alone in my fear. I look over and see her crouched on the floor, grinning wildly. Seriously? Yes, she was the first jumper in her class, but how could _anyone_ love a fall like that? I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse to see her reaction. I'm facing my worst fears here. This isn't supposed to be fun. Still, I love that smile, the life blazing in her eyes. They take my thoughts to better places.

She stands up and takes my hand again, helping me to my feet as she asks, "What's next?"

"It's—" but I barely start my answer before the first wall appears, smashing into Tris from behind. It pushes her against me, ramming her head painfully into my collarbone. For a split second, I notice the pain, and then my mind is lost in the walls closing around us. Tight, so tight. I pull my arms against me, squeezing into myself so I can fit into the tiny space. As the ceiling drops down, I crouch automatically, knowing I won't fit otherwise. I've been in this space enough times to know. Already it feels like I've been here forever.

"Confinement," Tris says. Yes, that would be it.

I attempt to respond, but all that comes out is some type of grunting sound. I can't think about anything except the walls, the tightness. There isn't enough room, isn't enough light, isn't enough air. I gasp for breath, feeling panic seize me like physical pain.

"Hey," Tris says softly, soothingly. "It's okay. Here—"

She takes my stiff arms and wraps them around her, inviting me to draw from her strength. I hold on tightly, my hands on her back, my cheek pressed to hers, my eyes squeezed shut, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Every muscle in my body is rigid, locked in a fear I can't escape.

"This is the first time I'm happy I'm so small," she says with a laugh, but the comment barely registers. All I can see are the walls.

"Mmhmm," I squeeze out through my tight throat. I don't know how much longer I can stay in here. I need to get out somehow, need to force my way through the walls. I remember finding a crowbar my first time in here. I could try that again now, but I also remember how the ceiling dropped with me that time, how I barely had room to escape. I don't want to do that again.

"We can't break out of here," she says, reading my thoughts. "It's easier to face the fear head on, right? So what you need to do is make the space smaller. Make it worse so it gets better. Right?" No, I think again. I can't do that. As bad as it is now, I can't make it worse. But I know she's right again.

"Yes," I manage to say.

"Okay. We'll have to crouch, then," she says. "Ready?" Not even remotely… But her hands are on my waist, squeezing as she works her way to the floor, pulling me down with her. There can't possibly be enough room to do this, but she twists her body around, forms it into a tight ball with her back against my chest, and somehow we fit. She's sitting on one of my ankles, and my knees are stuck at strange angles, but all I notice is how the ceiling drops down after us, trapping us into an even tighter space than before.

I'm gasping for air again, my face pressed near hers. "Ah," I say, "this is worse. This is definitely…" But she interrupts me.

"Shh. Arms around me," she says firmly. Okay. Even in my panic, I don't hesitate to accept that invitation. I slide my arms around her waist, clutching her to me, helping us fit into this tiny, tiny space. It's a little better holding her.

"The simulation measures your fear response," she tells me quietly. I try to focus on her voice as she continues, "so if you can calm your heartbeat down, it will move on to the next one. Remember? So try to forget that we're here." Right, sure thing. There aren't walls pressing on every part of me, a ceiling shutting out all the light and air…

"Yeah?" I breathe harshly against her ear. "That easy, huh?"

"You know," she says almost playfully, as if we're just sitting around somewhere relaxing, "most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl."

A new type of panic mixes with the fear I'm already fighting. Does she think I'm not interested, just because I'm afraid? I can't let her think that. I answer a bit too desperately, "Not claustrophobic people, Tris!"

"Okay, okay," she answers with a mix of humor and reassurance. God, Tris, don't play with me here… She takes my hand and places it over her heart, pressing it in place so I can feel her heartbeat hard and fast against my palm.

"Feel my heartbeat," she instructs me. "Can you feel it?" I can't miss it. It's racing almost as fast as my own. I don't know why, since she's obviously not afraid.

"Yes," I say, confusion mixing in with the fear.

"Feel how steady it is?"

"It's fast," I answer.

"Yes, well," she says quickly, "that has nothing to do with the box." A slight jolt runs through her body as she finishes the statement, as if she's wishing she could retract her words. That catches my attention through everything else, and I try to focus on what she said. Nothing to do with the box? What does it have to do with, then? Me? She's not afraid of me, is she? I'm not like my father, I think fiercely. You don't need to be afraid of me.

"Every time you feel me breathe, you breathe," she tells me. "Focus on that."

"Okay."

She breathes deeply, slowly, again and again, and I make myself breathe with her. It does help a little, though my mind is still flipping wildly through what she said. I need to know what she meant.

After a little while, she speaks again in a calm voice. "Why don't you tell me where this fear comes from. Maybe talking about it will help us… somehow."

I hesitate. This isn't a secret I want to reveal. Of course, I don't want to share any of my secrets, but the whole point of bringing her in here was to do that, to open up the first layer anyway.

"Um…okay," I finally say, breathing with her again, trying to gather the strength to continue. I push the next words out through the fear constricting my chest. "This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs." Just saying it makes my heart race even faster, makes the memories rush back, makes me feel the walls more than ever.

Tris is silent for a long time while my panic grows. I can feel her muscles clenching a little, but I don't know what to make of that. Finally, she says, "My mother kept our winter coats in our closet." I _really_ don't know what to make of that. Is she trying to joke while I sit here agonizing? Or is she pitying me now and can't think of anything else to say? My breathing is getting rapid again, and I realize this is definitely not helping.

"I don't…" I say, gasping, "I don't really want to talk about it anymore."

"Okay," she answers quickly. "Then…I can talk. Ask me something."

A shaky laugh comes out of me. "Okay," I say, and I ask the first thing that comes to mind. "Why is your heart racing, Tris?"

She cringes. I can feel it through her whole body. "Well, I…" she says slowly, clearly searching for words. "I barely know you," she finally adds, and I realize she isn't just searching for words, she's searching for an excuse. She doesn't want to answer this question.

"I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?" she finally stammers. But that's not right. She already said it had nothing to do with the box. So, it has to do with being crammed up against me? In what way? I can think of two possibilities, and I know which I hope it is…

"If we were in your fear landscape," I ask, "would I be in it?" Would you invite me to see it, like I invited you? Or would I be in it in a different way, with Peter and Drew, trying to hurt you, or like I was in your simulations, smirking as you drowned? Or maybe, just maybe, would you be revealing your feelings to me, afraid of how I might respond?

"I'm not afraid of you," she replies. Her voice is clear and confident, and I believe her.

"Of course you're not," I say, "but that's not what I meant." Well, not entirely. I'm sure my answer doesn't make sense to her, but it doesn't matter. Suddenly, I'm certain, absolutely positive, that her heart is pounding for the same reason mine would be if we were pressed together somewhere else. _She likes me._ She feels at least a little of what I do.

For a moment, I forget where we are, forget the walls around me, forget to be afraid. I laugh with joy, and the walls break apart, fall away, disappear. We're sitting in a circle of light in the empty landscape, between fears. I don't want to let go of her now, but I don't have an excuse to hold on, so I sigh and release her.

She scrambles to her feet too quickly, brushing herself off as if she somehow became covered in dirt while sitting there. She's covering. I climb slowly to my own feet, grinning as I watch her. When she finally looks at me again, nervous energy is written all over her face.

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor," I say, almost laughing, "because you're a terrible liar."

"I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well," she answers, grasping at the chance to change the subject. I almost don't let her, but then I shake my head and respond automatically.

"The aptitude test tells you nothing." Not when you're Divergent, anyway.

She narrows her eyes suspiciously and says, "What are you trying to tell me? Your test isn't the reason you ended up Dauntless?" She looks excited.

"Not exactly, no." I pause. I understand why she's asking. She's Divergent, and she probably suspects I am too. She's right, of course, but that secret is definitely not in my first layer. It's not one I'm willing to reveal today. Still, I suppose I can tell her that my result wasn't Dauntless. She'll know that soon enough anyway.

I begin, "I…" But then the next fear starts, and I remember where we are.

The woman I have to shoot, the one I always have to shoot, is standing there with her gun trained on me. She looks as she always does, her body still, her features plain. I used to wonder why her features were so plain, as if she wasn't supposed to be memorable, yet she was the same person every time. Eventually, I realized it's because she's more human to me that way, more like the Abnegation women I saw while growing up. It occurs to me that maybe that's part of why I find Tris so attractive. She carries all the beauty of Abnegation. That and her eyes, and her lips…

Tris is looking at the woman and at the table with the gun, with the single bullet. I see the understanding click into place.

"You have to kill her," Tris says softly. She really is frighteningly smart.

"Every single time," I reply.

"She isn't real," Tris whispers.

"She looks real," I answer honestly, biting my lip. "It feels real." Every time I do this, I feel a little more cruel, a little more like a murderer, a little more like my father. It isn't real, but what it does to me is.

"If she was real, she would have killed you already," Tris reassures me. She's right, of course, but logic doesn't play a big role in fear landscapes. Still, I need to face the fear, and I know from experience that it won't get easier if I delay.

"It's okay," I say, nodding. "I'll just…do it. This one's not…not so bad. Not as much panic involved." No, panic isn't really the word for this one. Dread is. This is a soul-damaging fear.

I pick up the gun, open the chamber, and load the bullet. My movements are mechanical, separate from what I'm about to do. The bullet clicks into place, and I take my pose, standing like I do in target practice, my feet apart, both hands holding the gun out in front of me. I aim, closing one eye automatically, and breathe, trying to believe that I'm just aiming at a target, not a person.

As I exhale, I fire and then close my eyes. I don't want to see her fall again. Instead, I listen, hearing her body hit the floor, letting the gun drop from my hand. My eyes open again, and I stare at the simulated blood. That gets me every time.

"C'mon," Tris says abruptly, pulling my arm. "Let's go. Keep moving." She tugs, and I follow her blindly again, trusting her to lead me away. Somehow, she's still here with me, helping me through this. She's seen three of my worst fears, and she hasn't turned away from me yet. But I know what's next.

Ahead, I see my father's shadow begin to creep around the circle of light. Panic grips me fiercely, and I'm seized by the sudden desire to run out of the fear landscape, to force it to end before Tris sees this. But this is why we're here, so I take a deep breath instead and whisper, "Here we go."

My father emerges into the light, tall and slim, his hair cut Abnegation short. His hands are behind his back, hiding the belt, making him look innocent I suppose, to those who don't know better.

Tris whispers, "Marcus," and I hear the confusion in her voice.

"Here's the part," I say shakily, "where you figure out my name."

My father advances, and I back away slowly. I can't help it. It doesn't seem to matter how strong I am outside of this place, or how much I plan for when I'm here. When I face Marcus, all thoughts leave my head, and I'm a frightened child again, cowering in the face of a certain beating. And this time Tris will see it…

She's looking back and forth between us, putting it all together. My heart sinks even more at the thought, until there's nothing left in me but despair.

"Is he…" she begins, and then it must click for her, because she looks at me and whispers, "Tobias." It's the first time I've heard my name in two years. Coming from her lips, it goes all the way through me, connects to my core. For a moment, the despair lifts just a little.

Then Marcus moves his hands in front of him and begins unwinding the belt from his fist as he watches me predatorily. "This is for your own good," he says, as he always does. His voice echoes, surrounding me in a fear that roots my feet in place. The fear multiplies him, and suddenly there are a dozen versions of him surrounding me, preparing their belts to slice into me.

The hands whip back, ready to strike, and I'm a child again, helpless in the face of my father's wrath. I cower, throwing my arms up to protect my face. The pain is already there, the pain of a hundred, a thousand remembered injuries. I can't breathe.

I hear the belt whistle through the air, hear the crack as it hits, and I cringe from the pain. But there isn't any pain. It didn't hit me. I look up in confusion and see Tris standing between me and Marcus. Her face is fierce, fearless, angry. The belt is wrapped around her wrist, where it struck her when she intervened. A wave of shock goes through me, making it impossible to think, to even know what I feel. She's facing him, for me.

Tris yanks on the belt savagely, ripping it away from my father's hand. How can she be stronger than him? She unwinds it from her arm, grasps the buckle, and turns it on him, striking him fast, hard. He yells in fury and lunges toward her, his fingers like claws reaching for her. The sight unlocks my muscles all at once, and then I'm between them.

For the first time in my life, I face my father, stand up to him, as I push Tris behind me.

_You don't get to hit her again. You never get to hurt her again._ A tremendous mix of emotion floods me, none of it fear, and abruptly Marcus disappears. The simulation ends, and we're standing in the fear landscape room again, the flickering fluorescents overhead.

I breathe hard, trying to think, but all that comes to mind, over and over, is _I did it. We did it_. I faced my greatest fear. For the first time, I actually did it, and it was because of her. I stare at her in awe. How did she do that? How did she get me to do that?

A memory flits through me, a realization. I remember telling Tris that Al hurt her because her strength made him feel weak, and abruptly I know that my father hit me so many times for that same reason. He needed to make me weaker so he'd feel strong. But it's the opposite for me. Tris' strength makes me stronger. I almost laugh with relief. I'm not like my father. I will _never_ be like him. I can be with Tris without worrying that I'll somehow turn into him, that I'll hurt her.

Tris is looking around, trying to figure out when the next fear will begin. Finally, she says, "That's it? Those were your worst fears? Why do you only have four…"

"Oh," she says, getting it. "That's why they call you—" but she stops as she turns around and looks at me. The expression on my face must stop her. She looks startled and confused, but there's no pity in her eyes. Relief mixes with the awe, and I'm filled with a sudden desire to pull her into my arms and kiss her, just kiss her, forever. But this isn't the place.

Still, I can't resist touching her. The emotional turmoil has left me shaky, so I keep my feet planted and reach out a hand instead. My fingers wrap around her elbow, and I tug her gently toward me. I lean down and kiss her cheek, slowly, enjoying the feel of her soft skin against my lips. Then, I bury my face in her neck, hugging her, breathing against her, feeling her energy recharge me. For a moment, her muscles remain stiff, and then she relaxes and wraps her arms around me. She sighs, and we stand there holding each other.

"Hey," she says softly. "We got through it." As if it was a joint effort. She doesn't have any idea what she's done, what she's helped me to do. She doesn't have any idea how incredible she is.

I raise my head and look at her, trying to express some portion of what I'm thinking, but no words come. I brush my fingers through her silky hair, tuck it behind her ear so I can see her face better. I really do like her face, especially those eyes, and those lips. I've been looking at those lips a lot, thinking about them even more.

The words still won't come, and I find myself twining her hair around a finger, just looking at her. Finally, I make the understatement of the year. "You got me through it."

"Well," she says a bit nervously, "it's easy to be brave when they're not my fears." There's some truth to that, but it doesn't matter. What she did is still amazing. It seems like forever ago that I was worried about bringing her in here. Now, I'm so glad I did.

Tris drops her hands, brushing them against her pant legs and looking away. It's time for us to go somewhere else, somewhere not associated with fear, with my father, with initiation, with anything except us. The river comes to mind, and I take her hand, twining my fingers with hers.

"Come on," I say. " I have something else to show you."

_**Please take a moment to write a review, so I know what you liked and what didn't work for you. Reviews really, really help with that... Thanks!**_


	2. Chapter 26 (First Kiss)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world, any of the characters, or the dialogue that's in the books. Those all belong to Veronica Roth. And while I appreciate the kind reviews very much, I'm definitely not her…_

**Chapter Twenty-Six **

I hold Tris' hand the entire walk, matching her pace, aware of her body next to mine. At one point, I run a fingertip down her palm. I'm not quite sure why I do it, except that I want to, but when she shivers lightly, I want to do it again.

"So…" she says after a while, "four fears."

"Four fears then; four fears now," I confirm with a nod. "They haven't changed, so I keep going in there, but… I still haven't made any progress." Not until you were there, anyway. Not until you changed everything.

"You can't be fearless, remember?" she reminds me. "Because you still care about things. About your life."

"I know," I answer, as I lead her around the edge of the Pit and onto the hidden path down to the river. Her eyes look around curiously. I doubt she's noticed this path before; most people miss it, but it's one of my favorite haunts.

"You were going to tell me about your aptitude test results," she says abruptly. She's still thinking about that. My mind has definitely been elsewhere.

"Ah." I scratch the back of my neck, debating how to answer, and finally ask, "Does it matter?"

"Yes," she insists. "I want to know."

My lips twitch into a smile. "How demanding you are." But I like her persistence. She's as stubborn as I am.

This isn't the place to answer her. Even though the area is completely deserted, I know there are potentially cameras watching, and monitoring devices listening. Dauntless is thoroughly observed. It's a risk just holding her hand.

So, I wait until we reach the river, until I've led her onto my favorite perch, a flat rock well away from the path. I know from my work in the Control Room that there are no cameras here and that the roar of the water will cover our conversation. We sit down, and I release her hand. I'm going to want my hands free for other things.

My eyes watch hers for a moment, and then I say, "These are things I don't tell people, you know. Not even my friends." She won't realize, of course, that I've never deliberately revealed my secrets to anyone, ever, until tonight. She has no way of knowing that I feel closer to her than to anyone else. Just thinking that makes me nervous – I can't reveal too much, or I'll scare her away. I know that Abnegation fear of intimacy too well.

She clasps her hands together, watching me, waiting, and I finally say, "My result was as expected. Abnegation." I don't tell her that my father prepared me for the test, told me how to make sure I got that result so that no one would know I'm Divergent. That secret is for another day. This one is bad enough for now.

"Oh." She sounds disappointed, and my heart sinks. Now, she'll realize why I left Abnegation, that I ran away, that I'm a coward. Sure enough, she continues, "But you chose Dauntless anyway?"

"Out of necessity," I say quietly. It's a feeble answer, but I don't have another to give.

"Why did you have to leave?" she asks, and I look away. I don't want to see her expression when she figures it out. It's hard to retrace my reasoning from two years ago. Yes, I was scared of my father, _terrified_, but I didn't have to leave my faction behind. If I had stayed in Abnegation, I wouldn't have lived with Marcus again. I would have gone through initiation with the others and then lived elsewhere. I would have been safe – I just couldn't see that at the time. All I could see was the need to escape, to get as far away as possible, so I ran like a frightened little boy. Shame fills me at the thought.

"You had to get away from your dad," Tris says simply. There's no pity in her voice, no judgment. It's just a statement of fact, and it sends a surge of hope through my chest.

"Is that why you don't want to be a Dauntless leader?" she asks. "Because if you were, you might have to see him again?"

The question startles me, and again I'm struck by her intelligence. She clearly has an aptitude for Erudite. She needs to hide it better or it will get her into serious trouble…

For a moment, I'm unsure how to respond. I just bared another secret, and she handled it exactly right, as she has with all the others I've exposed. It feels like I'm pushing my luck, but I decide to be continue being honest.

I shrug, trying to seem casual, and say, "That, and I've always felt that I don't quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are now, anyway."

She looks surprised, and she blurts out, "But you're… incredible." For a moment, I think she's trying to be kind, that the Abnegation in her is showing, but then she clears her throat and looks away, embarrassed, and I realize she means it. Joy darts into my heart, twining with the hope and driving away the rest of my fear. She's seen the worst in me, and somehow she thinks I'm incredible? It's hard to breathe.

"I mean, by Dauntless standards," Tris adds hastily, covering again. "Four fears is unheard of. How could you not belong here?"

My eyes drift to the floor, and I shrug, trying to think of a response. I don't really care what the Dauntless think of me at this point, don't care how well I fit in here. With the direction the leaders have been taking this faction, I'd just as soon not belong.

"I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different," I finally say. "All your life you've been training to forget yourself, so when you're in danger, it becomes your first instinct. I could belong in Abnegation just as easily." You could, too, I think, but she suddenly looks bitter.

"Yeah, well," she says, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be."

I almost laugh. With everything she's helped me with tonight, she thinks she's selfish? My lips curve into a smile, and I say, "That's not entirely true. That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me – that selfless girl, that's not you?"

She stares at me for a moment, frowning in thought. Finally, she says quietly, "You've been paying close attention, haven't you?" Only all the time…

"I like to observe people," comes out of my mouth. I'm not entirely sure if I'm joking or evading the issue, it's so obviously untrue. She picks up on my tone.

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four," she says, mirroring my words from in the fear landscape, "because you're a terrible liar." My first impulse is to laugh, but I hear the same tone in her voice that I felt when I said those words to her. She's figured it out. She knows how I feel. It's time to be bold.

I rest my hand on the rock, leaning closer to her. The air charges with electricity, as it always does when I'm close to her. She's looking down at my hand, avoiding my eyes, so I look at her lips instead. They're so near, I could lean in just a little more and kiss them. The temptation is almost overwhelming.

"Fine," I finally say. "I watched you because I like you." My voice is steady. I'm done waiting.

She's looking at me now, and I meet her eyes as I continue, "And don't call me 'Four,' okay? It's nice to hear my name again." It's nice to hear it from you.

She blushes and struggles to respond before stammering, "But you're older than I am… _Tobias_."

That's what she's focusing on, here? I can't help but smile. "Yes," I say wryly, "that whopping two-year gap really is _insurmountable_, isn't it?"

To my surprise, she looks more flustered, upset even. "I'm not trying to be self-deprecating," she protests, "I just don't get it. I'm younger. I'm not pretty. I—" but she stops because I'm laughing. I can't help it. After all my worries, my fears, my hesitations, she thinks _she's_ not good enough for _me_? This amazing young woman who brought me back to life, who changed everything, thinks that I should be with someone _better_? I laugh from deep inside and lean forward those extra few inches, kissing her temple softly.

But she's angry. "Don't pretend," she says, "you know I'm not. I'm not ugly, but I am certainly not pretty."

For a moment, I'm torn between anger and amusement. I know that Abnegation self-doubt all too well. It's the problem with always focusing outside ourselves – we can't see our own worth. I hate that she doesn't know how truly incredible she is. It won't be possible to convince her in one night, but I can start.

"Fine," I say, humoring her. "You're not 'pretty'. _So?_" I hold her eyes for a moment, challenging her to see herself as she deserves to be seen. Then, I kiss her cheek. I can't resist.

"I _like_ how you look," I emphasize, my voice dropping on the word "like." "You're deadly smart. You're brave." I pause and then add the difficult part in a softer voice. "And even though you found out about Marcus, you aren't giving me that look. Like I'm a kicked puppy or something."

She stares at me blankly, like it never even occurred to her to pity me, and answers, "Well, you're not."

In that moment, I love her even more, and then it's impossible to wait any longer. My hand caresses her face, and my body leans in, and I kiss her on the lips. I probably do everything wrong, but to me it's the most perfect moment in my life. Her scent, her taste, the feel of her lips on mine, her soft skin under my hand, all boil together into a happiness so deep it's almost painful. A smile crosses my face, and I have to pull back enough to let it spread. I don't go far.

Then, my lips are back on hers, the excitement growing. This is finally happening. I've been hoping for so long, and now it's real. My hands need to be on her face again, so I move back enough to give them room, let them pull her back to me so we can kiss more firmly, more deeply. She runs a hand up my back, my neck, sliding her fingers through my hair and holding me to her, kissing me back with a growing enthusiasm. We stay that way for a long time, and I never want it to end.

A large splash from the river finally catches my attention, and I reluctantly pull away, realizing abruptly just how late it is. We both have to be at training tomorrow. I gaze at her for a moment longer, my fingers brushing her cheek affectionately, and then I take her hand and we rise. "I'll walk you to the dorm," I say softly.

We don't talk on the way there. My mind is too occupied, and I suspect hers is too, but our hands stay linked the whole time. I automatically take the route with the fewest cameras and pull us into the shadows to avoid the others. It's a deep instinct at this point. Even when I carried her away from the chasm that terrible night, I apparently did the same thing, because there was nothing I needed to erase when I checked the footage the next day.

When we reach the dorm, we linger outside the door. I caress her face again and bring my lips to hers for a long, slow kiss. When we finally pull apart, I whisper, "Good night, Tris." Her eyes meet mine unhesitatingly, and a smile tugs at her mouth.

"Good night, Tobias," she says, and I know she's enjoying using that name, being the only person to use it. I smile back, and then she walks into the dorm, while I return slowly to my apartment. It's not until I'm there that I realize we didn't talk about how to act around everyone else tomorrow. Surely, she'll know that we have to stay hidden for now. As smart as she is, she must know that. I hope so, anyway.

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	3. Chapter 27 (Lauren's Fear Landscape)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world, any of the characters, or the dialogue that's in the books. Those all belong to Veronica Roth. Personally, I'm glad of that, since I like how she writes._

**Chapter Twenty-Seven (Lauren's Fear Lanscape)**

My dreams are fantastic that night, among the best of my life. When I wake up, it's difficult to focus on the day ahead. All I want to do is find Tris and steal her away to somewhere private.

As I shower, I finally begin to remember how dangerous today is. We can't let _anyone_ suspect that we're together. Peter already tried to kill her for less, and even if that weren't an issue, any rumors would certainly get back to Eric, and that would be it. At best, he'd kick her out of initiation, and at worst… I have to make sure it never comes to that.

I take the time to cut my hair, buzzing it short, while I collect my thoughts. When I'm done, I realize I've cut it Abnegation short. I didn't mean to do that, since this isn't the best time to remind Eric where I came from, but my old habits still emerge when I don't remember to stop them.

By the time I head to breakfast, my mind is fully around how I need to behave – cold and aloof, as if she's just another initiate. I can only hope that Tris does the same. If she calls me Tobias, or touches me, or even greets me in too friendly a way, we're in trouble.

As I walk into the dining hall, I keep my body language surly and my expression like I woke up in a bad mood. My eyes skim the room just enough to find Zeke, and I head to his table without looking at anyone else. It's better if I don't see Tris; I stare at her too much on a normal day, let alone now.

Zeke takes one look at my expression and pushes the coffee my way. Good, my face is apparently convincing. I pour a cup and grab some toast, eating plain food by instinct. Abnegation is deep inside me.

"Rough night?" Zeke asks, and I grunt a non-committal reply. He laughs. "You've got to stop working two jobs. It's affecting your sunny disposition."

A smile twitches at the corner of my mouth, and I say, "Yeah, it's all your brother's fault."

"That's what I've been saying," Zeke exclaims with a grin, and I let myself smile in response. Zeke is almost as anxious for initiation to finish as I am. Uriah's doing well, but I know that his brother worries about him, worries that he'll end up factionless, or get a lousy job, or maybe worse. I don't know for certain if Zeke realizes that Uriah is Divergent, but I suspect he does. The two are very close, even for brothers.

Not for the first time, I wonder what it would have been like to have a sibling. I wouldn't wish my home life on anyone, but maybe I wouldn't have been so alone, so lonely all the time if there'd been two of us. Or maybe it would have just added complications – someone else to worry about, to try to protect, or to watch turn into my father.

Zeke catches my attention again, pointing at Uriah and launching into a story about dunking muffins into orange juice. My eyes follow his finger automatically, and they catch on Tris for a moment. The sight of her is almost overwhelming, but I push the feelings down and force my expression to be cold and empty. It's not easy.

My gaze passes over Uriah and back to Zeke. In a way, I owe them both a favor. I would have left Dauntless three months ago if I hadn't been determined to get Uriah through initiation, for Zeke's sake. If he hadn't happened to be 16 this year, I wouldn't have been here when Tris arrived. With a jolt, I realize she'd be dead now if it weren't for that. If anyone else had been running the simulations when she slipped up and manipulated them, when she revealed she was Divergent, they'd have killed her for sure. It's a sobering thought.

Lauren rises and starts gathering the initiates together, and I climb to my feet, abandoning the rest of my breakfast. Together, we lead the initiates up to the fear landscape room. It's a very different walk than it was last night. I keep my eyes on the path ahead of me, not looking back at the group at all. That might seem a little suspicious, I suppose, but it's the safest course under the circumstances. It's too hard to look at Tris casually right now.

When we get to the top, I go into the monitoring room and program the computer for Lauren's landscape while she talks to the initiates. I emerge as she's explaining, "Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen fears in your fear landscapes. That is the average number."

Lynn pipes up, asking, "What's the lowest number someone has gotten?" Sorry, Lynn, I think, but you won't be beating that record. I've seen your simulations.

"In recent years," Lauren answers, "four." I can sense her looking at me, but I stare fixedly at the floor, refusing to acknowledge that that's where my name comes from. That was something I shared with Tris, not something for the rest of this group.

"You will not find out your number today," Lauren continues. "The simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you will experience my fears instead of your own." I think of how easily Tris navigated my fears last night, and I know she won't have any trouble today. Most of the others shouldn't, either, except maybe Drew. He seems to be afraid of everything these days. That's probably my fault, from what I did to him after he attacked Tris, but I can't say I'm sorry. Some of the initiates will be factionless soon, and he's close to the top of my preferred list. Now, if I could just get Peter out of here too…

Lauren assigns the fears, pointing as she calls them out. I'm not sure who gets which one, since I'm still focusing most of my attention on the floor, but I watch as they each face their assigned fear. It's dull, as always, to watch from the outside. Unless you're hooked up to the computer, you can't see the fears or hear anything except screams that are loud enough to leak through the walls. Still, I watch the initiates through the window, because it's a good distraction, and it gives my eyes a focus.

When it's Tris' turn, she walks boldly into the room, her usual fearless self. I finally have an excuse to look at her, and I watch her intently through the window. It's hard to tell which fear she's facing at first, but when she begins to scream I suddenly realize why. Lauren assigned her the fear of being kidnapped. This is not good.

Tris screams again and again, full-fledged panic seizing her, and my heart pounds with her. This isn't how it's supposed to work. She's supposed to face something she's not afraid of at first, so she can learn how to work the simulation. Instead, she's facing a fear she shares, a fear that's far too real to her.

Her screams become more intense, filled with pain and dread and the certainty of death. _Come on_, I think, _get a handle on it_._ You're amazing at this. Find your way out of it._ But she can't. It's too much, too soon, and it's overwhelming her.

Unexpectedly, pain fills my mouth, and I realize I've bitten the inside of my cheek until it's bleeding. My entire body is clenched, my hands in tight fists at my sides. Tris is in agony, and I can't stand to watch it. This has to end – now.

"Stop," I say loudly, sternly. Lauren must have reached the same conclusion, because she stops the simulation as I say the word. The lights come on in the fear landscape room, and Tris stands there, shaking uncontrollably. Her knees buckle, and she drops to the floor, hiding her face in her hands while she tries to regain some semblance of order.

I find myself walking toward her, unable to stop. My first impulse is to comfort her, but of course I can't do that in front of everyone. In fact, I need to do exactly the opposite. The others will be wondering why I stopped the simulation, and it would be much too easy for them to guess the reason. I hate what I have to do next, even more than I hated having to throw knives at her, having to nick her ear to throw Eric off the scent, but it's as necessary as that was.

Grabbing her arm, I yank her to her feet and shout, "What the hell was that, Stiff?"

She's startled. She tries to catch her breath, hiccuping as she gulps. "I…" she begins. "I didn't—"

"Get yourself together," I snarl. "This is pathetic."

The words bring her back to herself, restore her fearlessness and ferocity. She pulls away from me, glaring at me in fury, and then she hits me, hard, on the face. I have no idea how to respond. For a long moment, we stand there, staring at each other, and then she yells, "Shut up!"

She twists her arm out of my grasp and walks out of the room, leaving me standing there in complete confusion.

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	4. Chapter 28 (Tris Visits Caleb)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world, any of the characters, or the dialogue that's in the books. Those all belong to Veronica Roth. Personally, I'm glad of that, since I like how she writes._

**Chapter 28 (Tris Visits Caleb)**

After a moment, Lauren takes control of the situation. Turning to the initiates, she says, "_That _is how you will look when you face your real fears. I didn't mean to do that to any of you today, but sometimes an initiate happens to share an instructor's fear. As you can see from Tris' reaction, it's much, much harder to face your own fears than someone else's."

She looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to add something, and I manage to pull myself together. My face is etched in stone as I look at the initiates and say, "This is a good time to remind you all to think through your fears in advance. It will help if you have a plan before you go in. Even if you end up with an unexpected fear, it'll be easier to face it if you've been thinking about how to handle different situations and how to calm yourself down."

Several of the initiates nod, their eyes still wide with shock. But Peter smirks at me and asks, "So, when we face our real fears, if we react badly and, say, punch you, what happens to us?"

I glare at him and answer coldly, "You're welcome to find out." For just a moment, he holds my gaze, but then he backs down and looks away. I mastered the intimidating stare a long time ago. Tris is the only person who's ever stood up to it.

"That goes for all of you," I add, my eyes passing challengingly over the group. They look down, look away, look scared. Good. Now they'll be convinced that Tris is in serious trouble, that I don't feel anything positive toward her at all. This is certainly not how I wanted today to go, but at least one part of it worked.

I want to leave, to go find Tris and make sure she's okay, and to explain why I yelled at her like that. I had assumed she would understand, but obviously she didn't. The realization makes me feel sick. But Lauren continues the training session, and I have no real choice but to stay.

It seems to take forever for the remaining initiates to go through the fear landscape. After the last one finishes, we give some pointers to wrap up the session. I'm not entirely sure what I say, since I'm talking automatically at that point. Just as we're ready to leave, Lauren launches into a question and answer period. It's as if she's determined to make the session last as long as possible.

Finally, the initiates begin to leave. I head for the door immediately, but Lauren catches my arm and says, "Hang on a second, Four." I yank my arm away, on the verge of snapping at her, but I control myself. She waits until the last initiate is gone and then turns to me with a worried expression.

"Look, Four," she says, "don't be too hard on Tris. It was my fault for assigning her that fear. I should have thought. I should have realized she'd react badly after the way she was attacked."

For a moment, I just stare at Lauren, putting everything together. She's been deliberately keeping me here this whole time to keep me from storming after Tris. She probably thought she was giving me time to calm down, protecting Tris in the process, but I could scream with frustration. I could have gone after her an hour ago, could have already resolved this mess. Instead, I've been stuck here because my fellow instructor is worried that I'll hurt the most important person in my life.

My voice is rough as I say, "It's none of your concern how I punish a transfer." Again, I start to leave, but Lauren blocks my way, her arms crossed, her face set.

"Don't act like Eric," she says coldly. "You're better than that." Part of me admires her persistence, but I don't have time for this.

"Yes, I am," I snap, "but this _really_ isn't your business."

To my surprise, she explodes, shouting, "It most certainly _is_ my business when _I_ assign one of _my_ fears to someone. _I_ screwed up here, not her, so if you want to get mad at anyone, it had better be _me_, Four!" Her face is filled with fury, and I actually back away a step, startled.

"You don't have enough fears to realize how hard they can be," she adds more quietly.

For a few seconds, I just stand there shaking my head, with no idea how to respond. I have to get out of here, and Lauren's "help" is definitely not helping. But she thinks it is, and as frustrating as this is, I should appreciate it when someone else wants to help Tris. So, I force myself to breathe, to calm down.

"You're right," I finally say, keeping my voice level and deliberately softening my expression. "We should both have been paying more attention. This was our fault more than hers. And I certainly shouldn't have grabbed her when her adrenaline was that high." Softening my expression a little more, I add, "Don't worry, I'll just talk to her, okay?"

Lauren looks at me closely for another moment, trying to decide if she trusts my answer. Finally, she nods stiffly. And at long last, I leave the room. As I walk down the stairs, a line from the Dauntless manifesto crosses my mind: "We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another." The timing is terrible, but I have to admit it's nice to see there's still some of that left in Dauntless.

I spend the next few hours searching the compound for Tris, but she seems to have vanished completely. Christina and Will are looking too, so I follow them from a distance for a while, thinking that perhaps she'll talk to them even if she's avoiding me. But they don't have any more luck than I do. When lunch starts, I make my way to the dining hall and wait there through the entire meal time, but she never shows up. This is definitely not good.

Eventually, I wander up to the roof, figuring that even if she isn't there, I can use the height to look for her outside. It's the first time I've voluntarily looked over the edge of the building, and my heart pounds as I view the drop. It was much easier in the fear landscape, when Tris was holding my hand, but I force myself to look thoroughly from all sides of the roof. She's nowhere in sight. _Come on, Tris, where did you go?_

My last resort is the control room. I try to avoid it during the day, because other people are on duty then, and I don't want to explain myself to them. But I'm worried now, and I'm out of other choices, so I take the stairs back down from the roof and cross to the elevators.

Jeff is at the controls. He's not a bad guy overall, but I don't want to tell him what I'm looking for or why. I decide to see what he knows first.

"Anything unusual going on?" I ask him, keeping my voice casual. It's a 50/50 shot whether he's noticed the situation.

He frowns a little and answers, "Not that I've seen. Why? Is there something I should know about?"

I hesitate, looking away. If he learns about this later, I don't want him to think I was hiding anything, but I also don't want to call his attention to this if he otherwise wouldn't notice it. I shift my weight, kicking a little with the other foot, and shrug.

"Not really," I say. "We had a minor incident with one of the initiates, and Lauren needs to follow up with her, but we're not sure where she went." Maybe if I put the focus on Lauren, Jeff won't be suspicious of me.

"I thought it would be fastest to check up here," I add.

Jeff shrugs, not really interested in the initiates. "Go ahead," he says, standing up from the computer and stretching. "I could use a break anyway." He grabs his empty coffee cup and heads out of the room. Good, that'll give me at least five minutes.

I search quickly, starting with the camera that caught her crossing the glass room. She doesn't know to avoid the cameras, so she's easy to follow. That's a problem long-term, but for now it works. I follow her until she leaves the building, the last image showing her heading in the direction of the train tracks. A sudden fear flits through me. She didn't leave the compound, did she? Surely she wouldn't do that.

I fast-forward through the footage from all the outside cameras, hoping to see her come back in at some point, but she doesn't reappear. A weight sinks into my stomach. She left. She'll be in real trouble if Eric finds out. It's about the only rule Dauntless enforces on free time – initiates aren't allowed to leave the compound – and she broke it. And it's my fault.

My mind races through options as I return the computer to its regular monitoring mode, making sure Jeff can't see what footage I evaluated. He returns as I'm finishing, and I give him a tight smile, saying, "Got it. I'll let Lauren know. Thanks for the loan."

"No problem," he says, and then adds, "You're on duty tonight, right?" I nod, only half listening, and he continues, "Don't be late – I need to leave on time."

"Understood," I say over my shoulder, my feet already out the door.

My only chance is to be by the tracks as each train comes in. If she left on the train, she'll probably return on it, and if I can get to her before anyone else does, maybe I can make it look like she was with me the whole time. That will generate its own set of suspicions, but it's far better than having people know she left by herself.

Fortunately, I know the train schedule well. I just wish I knew where she went, or when she's likely to return, or where she'll get off. There are too many variables for me to cover them all, but I have to try. What choice do I have?

I end up playing the odds. If she gets off at a distant stop and walks in, she's less likely to be noticed, so that's the least important option to cover. If she rides the train all the way to Dauntless, she's most likely to get off on the roof. After all, she likes heights. So, I decide to check every train that arrives there and catch the others as best I can.

She's not on either of the next two trains. I make sure to return to the building between them, to make it less obvious that I'm waiting. There's no way to avoid the outside cameras, but I duck my head a little to hide my face. It's feeble, but better than nothing.

As I'm heading out to meet the third train, I hear footsteps scrambling toward me and a shout of "Four." I spin, hoping for a wild moment that it's Tris, but it's Lauren. She looks upset.

"We have a problem," she says in a rush, her voice quiet but intense as she glances around, trying not to be overheard. "Tris left the compound. We drove her out of here." _How does she know that?_

"What do you mean?" I ask carefully, keeping my voice and expression neutral.

"Eric was talking to the Dauntless-borns," she continues, agitation showing in every part of her. "And then Maria came to get him for an emergency. I heard what they were talking about. Tris went to Erudite to see her brother, and they found her, and they're driving her back here. Eric is _furious_."

Oh, god. It's the worst possible scenario. Everything inside me sinks. We had one perfect moment, and now I've managed to screw everything up horribly. And Tris will pay the price, maybe permanently. I can't let that happen. Somehow, I have to find a way to salvage this.

"It's our fault," Lauren says adamantly, reading my mind. "We have to do something."

"Yes, we do," I agree, but my mind is no longer on the conversation. Instead, it's racing again, trying to think of some solution, some way to get Tris out of this. "But we have to be careful," I find myself adding, "because Eric hates me, and he'll do whatever he thinks will bother me most." I didn't mean to say that aloud, but Lauren just nods, and I realize it's probably common knowledge.

"I'll go," she says. "I'll tell Eric what happened and let him get mad at me." Her voice is scared, but firm. For the first time, it occurs to me how intimidating Eric must be to other people. I've always thought of him as my own personal demon, but he's probably even more frightening to those who have never seen his weaknesses.

"No," I say automatically, "that won't work." I don't have a plan yet, but I know the answer isn't for Lauren to say that Tris ran away from fear. That will only egg Eric on more, and he already wants to punish her for being first when he thinks someone like Peter should be, and for being from Abnegation – for being too much like me.

"I have to do it," I state firmly. "I know how he thinks." Besides, I can't trust Tris' safety to anyone else, especially not when I caused this.

"Do you know when they'll get here?" I ask, not quite able to hide the desperation in my voice.

Lauren glances at her watch and replies, "They've probably arrived by now." I swear silently.

"Don't say anything to anyone," I tell her fiercely. "I'll figure something out, and I'll let you know what happens." Then, I move away quickly, not waiting for a response. Whatever I'm going to do, I have to do it now.

I walk fast, trying to strategize on the way. The most important thing is for Tris to come out of this safely. She can recover from anything else, even if she never forgives me. After all, she's ranked first, so she can lose a lot of position and still make it through initiation. Even if she doesn't, being factionless isn't like people think. I've seen the way they live, and in some ways I prefer it to Dauntless, or even Abnegation. And we could still be together out there, if she wants.

The biggest threat is if Eric believes she's Divergent. I'm sure he already suspects, so I have to find a way to shift his focus elsewhere. That means I have to distract him from her ranking, or explain how she was able to escape from every simulation so much faster than everyone else. There's also the issue of the simulation I had to delete after she manipulated it. I couldn't erase the fact that the simulation occurred, just the actual recording, so there's a suspicious trail there. But Eric might not know that, and he's not going to be looking right now. If I can distract him enough, maybe he won't think to check later.

Even if I manage that, though, there are other signs of Divergence I need to worry about. I know I suspected Tris was Divergent long before her first simulation. For a moment I think through why that was, and I realize the main reason is that she's so deadly smart. Someone who grew up in Abnegation and chose Dauntless shouldn't be that smart.

Has Eric seen that part of her? For a moment, I assume he must have, because it's so obvious to me, but maybe not… She's always been wary around him, and that probably caused her to hide instinctively. Everyone else saw her brilliance during Capture the Flag, but she was on my team, so Eric didn't observe that. And he was such a sore loser the next day, I doubt anyone told him what she did. It's possible he doesn't know.

It suddenly sinks in that her brother chose Erudite, and siblings often have the same affinities. That will definitely arouse Eric's suspicions, so that's what I need to counter the most. Somehow, I have to make Eric think that Tris is foolish, a silly teenage girl. One who managed to end up first… Okay, silly but fearless, someone who's good at the simulations due to sheer guts. And she left the compound for those reasons – because she was brave enough not to worry about being punished and foolish enough to take the chance. It's hard to imagine selling Tris that way, when half of it is so blatantly untrue, but I have to do it. And I have to get Tris to play along. That part might actually be harder.

It's not an easy plan, or even a particularly good one, but I feel a bit better having _something_ in mind. I decide on it just in time, because as I approach the front of the building, I see Eric and Tris in the entrance area, in the room between the two sets of doors. Eric is blocking Tris' way, keeping her from entering the building, and his entire body radiates menace. My muscles tense at the sight, and I want to step between them the way I stepped in front of my father in the fear landscape. _Stay away from her._

I take a calming breath and fix my face into an unconcerned expression. I can't let Eric see that I care. Another breath, and there's no trace of emotion on my face as I push the doors open and walk through.

"What are you doing?" I ask Eric, deliberately putting him on the defensive, deliberately drawing his attention to me. My eyes stay on him, not flicking to Tris at all.

"Leave the room," Eric snarls.

"No," I answer calmly, still watching him. "She's just a foolish girl. There's no need to drag her here and interrogate her."

"Just a foolish girl?" Eric says with a snort. "If she were just a foolish girl, she wouldn't be ranked first, now would she?" I knew that would be the crux of his argument, but I was hoping it wouldn't come up quite so soon.

I pinch the bridge of my nose like I'm tired or annoyed. It effectively hides my eyes from Eric, and I look intensely at Tris during that moment, willing her to understand. She needs to play along for this to work.

Eric is still looking at me, so he doesn't see how quickly she gets it, doesn't even realize there was something to get.

"I…" she begins. "I was just embarrassed and didn't know what to do." She sniffs, tears in her eyes, looking very convincing as his gaze moves to her. "I tried to… and…" She shakes her head as if she can't bear to finish.

"You tried to what?" Eric asks, his attention fully on her. A sliver of hope goes through me. He's buying it. I don't know where Tris is going with this, if anywhere, but an idea leaps to mind, and I act on it.

"Kiss me," I finish for her. My voice is firm, bored, like an instructor annoyed by a little girl's crush. "And I rejected her, and she went running off like a five-year-old. There's really nothing to blame her for but stupidity." I say the last part derisively, like the thought of kissing her disgusts me, like the thought of her in general disgusts me. Everything in me shouts in protest, but I squash it down, use the energy it gives me to make my act better. The more I seem to dislike her, the more Eric will be on her side.

I wait for the words to sink in. Tris stays quiet, looking at the floor like a sad, rejected little girl. She's surprisingly good at this.

Finally, Eric begins to laugh. His eyes flit back and forth between us as his laughter grows. It's an awful sound, and he keeps it going far too long. I can't tell if this just appeals to his sick sense of humor that much or if he suspects it's all a lie.

"Isn't he a little too old for you, Tris?" he asks with a nasty grin. A moment of triumph passes through me. He's thinking of her as young, as foolish. It's working.

Tris wipes away a tear, still looking down, and manages a decent blush. If I hadn't been watching her expressions so closely for so long, I'd buy it too.

"Can I go now?" she asks quietly, with a bit of a whimper.

Eric pauses only briefly before saying, "Fine, but you are not allowed to leave the compound without supervision again, you hear me?" He says it pedantically, like he's speaking to a young child, and my heart soars. I squash it immediately, because he's turning back to me now.

"And _you_…" he says in that vicious, taunting voice I know so well, "had better make sure none of the transfers leave this compound again. And that none of the others try to kiss you."

I roll my eyes dismissively, as if I think none of the others are stupid enough to try what Tris did, and answer, "Fine."

To my enormous relief, Tris walks out of the room safely, leaving the building again. I don't watch where she goes. Instead, I keep my eyes on Eric, giving her time to get well away, and making sure that Eric's focus is on me, not her. When it's just the two of us, his expression hardens.

"You know," he sneers, "I can see why she thought you were interested. You do look at her a lot."

A jump of adrenaline goes through me, but I ignore it, refusing to allow it to alter my expression. "No more than you do," I say, struck by a sudden inspiration. I can see him start a little at the accusation, immediately on the defensive.

"I don't waste my time looking at Stiffs," he responds angrily, but I laugh.

"Of course you do." My voice is bold, amused. "Everyone looks at her. We all do it for the same reason, and it's certainly not because she has a pretty face."

"What do you mean?" Eric asks suspiciously, and I can tell he's thoroughly engrossed in what I'm saying.

"We're all trying to figure out how a scrawny, foolish little girl from Abnegation managed to end up first," I comment like it's so obvious I can't believe I need to say it.

His expression is eager now, but I don't add anything else. I wait, making him ask for it, knowing that will make him more curious, more focused on my answer.

Finally, he can't take it any longer, and he prompts me, "Well? What have you figured out?"

I roll my eyes again, like he's the stupid one now. His teeth grind impatiently, angrily, but he waits for my answer. I say it lazily. "She has no fears."

"What do you mean?" he asks. "Of course she has fears. I've watched her simulations." An edge of nervousness creeps through me. He _has_ watched them. I knew he was paying too much attention to her. But I also know that everyone considers me an expert on being fearless, so he'll be inclined to believe what I say next.

"Not real ones." My voice is dismissive. "Not deep ones. Compared with everyone else, she has shallow little fears that she can overcome in seconds. It's no wonder her simulation times are so good. For her, it's like being in someone else's fear landscape. It's all incredibly easy."

Eric is staring at me intently, his expression unusually thoughtful. Finally, he nods like it all makes sense now, and I can tell exactly what he's thinking. She isn't Divergent. She isn't clever. She isn't even particularly brave. She's just lucky to have no real fears, just like I was lucky to only have four fears. That's why I beat Eric, and that's why she's beating Peter. It's not because we're better in any way. It's sheer dumb luck. The argument feeds perfectly into his way of thinking, and he swallows it whole.

He laughs, and I know he's not thinking about Tris at all any more. He's thinking that I finally admitted he should have been first in our class. He's feeling like he won. He gives me a triumphant look and then says, "Well, I don't have all day to waste on you. I have real work to do." And with that, he throws the doors open and walks back into the building.

A surge of relief goes through me, leaving me too weak to move for a moment. Somehow, Tris and I pulled off the impossible. She got away with no punishment, and Eric is less suspicious of her now than he was, less suspicious of both of us. He's still dangerous, particularly if he figures out she's a lot smarter than we just portrayed her, but overall, this went far better than I could have hoped.

I want to follow Tris, but I don't dare do that yet. I need to make sure Eric stays out of sight. It also occurs to me that I'd better make sure Lauren doesn't contradict anything we just said. So I head back into the building to find her.

It isn't hard. As soon as I walk into the Pit, she comes up to me, her expression still anxious. "Well?" she asks. "What happened?"

I walk with her to a quieter spot, one that I know isn't monitored.

"Nothing too bad," I say softly, making sure we're not overheard. "Eric yelled at her a lot, but nothing worse."

Lauren looks doubtful and comments, "That's not like Eric."

I shrug and add, "We had to change the story some. It's not worth going into, but um, don't say anything to Eric about today. It's better if he thinks that Tris doesn't have any real fears."

Lauren looks at me for a long moment and then nods. "Okay."

"Oh, and…" I hesitate, not wanting to trust Lauren like this but not daring to leave her as a wild card either. "If it comes up at all, tell him that you think I've always disliked Tris."

She nods again, looking at me oddly, and her mouth crooks into a small smile. "Sure thing, Four," she says.

As I turn to leave, she adds, "And don't worry, I know that you wouldn't rank anyone differently based on whether or not you like them."

I freeze. _She knows._ I face her again, my expression neutral. "You're right," I say firmly. "I wouldn't, if it ever came up." She doesn't look like she's buying it, but I hold her gaze challengingly, and eventually she looks away.

"Where is Tris, anyway?" she asks. "I want to apologize to her, but she hasn't come back in."

"She's outside. I haven't talked to her yet. It didn't seem like a good idea with Eric still nearby."

"He just went upstairs," she tells me, "right before you came in." A thought seems to occur to her, and she says, "Tell you what. You go talk to Tris, for both of us, okay? If Eric comes back down, I'll talk to him about something to do with the Dauntless-borns. Keep him busy." She nods as she says it, like it's something she really wants to do, and I realize this day has been hard on her too. She feels guilty, and she hasn't been able to do anything to resolve it. I hate relying on others, but I really do want to talk to Tris, and I absolutely don't want Eric to see us, so I nod too.

"Fair enough," I answer, and I walk away without looking back.

Tris is still outside, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk. As I approach, she stands and looks at me, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" she asks challengingly. She's still mad, or maybe she thinks I'm mad at her – probably both, come to think of it.

"Are you all right?" I ask, trying to defuse the tension, and also because I genuinely want to know. It's been a nightmarish day. My hand touches her cheek softly, but she bats it away, not ready to forgive me.

"Well," she says furiously, "first I got reamed out in front of everyone, and then I had to chat with the woman who's trying to destroy my old faction, and then Eric almost tossed my friends out of Dauntless, so yeah, it's shaping up to be a pretty great day, _Four_."

Jeanine interviewed her? That's not good. It was hard enough to make Eric think she's nothing but a foolish girl without Jeanine telling him she isn't. And on top of that, Eric threatened her friends. He knows she still has too much Abnegation in her. This day just keeps getting worse – too many signs of Divergence, too many things going wrong. I thought we had gotten past the worst part, but now I don't know.

"Why do you care anyway?" Tris demands, and the words sting. "You can be either cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend. You can't play both parts at the same time." As always, the word "cruel" twists inside me. I hate being called that. It makes me feel like my father.

"I am not cruel," I respond automatically, scowling, and finally I begin the explanation I wanted to give hours ago.

"I was protecting you this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were…" I sigh in aggravation. "You would never win. They would always call your ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill." I don't add how much danger she'd be in from Eric. He's already scared her enough today.

She opens her mouth to respond but then closes it again, apparently thinking better of her answer. She rubs her cheeks with her hands, thinking hard for a few seconds, and then says bitterly, "You didn't have to insult me to prove something to them."

"And you didn't have to run off to your brother just because I hurt you," I counter. It would have been much easier if she'd just talked to me, just trusted me. I rub the back of my neck, not quite daring to meet her eyes as I add, "Besides – it worked, didn't it?"

"At my expense." She's still angry, or maybe hurt would be a better description. My insides sink a little at the thought.

"I didn't think it would affect you this way," I say quietly. My eyes drop to the ground, and I shrug helplessly. "Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you. That you are capable of being hurt." She always seems so strong... _I didn't mean to hurt you._

She puts her hands into her pockets and rocks back and forth on her heels, thinking. Then, to my surprise, she stands on tiptoes and kisses me gently on the lips.

"You're brilliant, you know that?" she asks, and my heart pounds. She forgives me. We can get past this. She adds, "You always know exactly what to do." No, I don't deserve that compliment, certainly not after today. The only reason I half-manage is because I spend so much time thinking about her.

"Only because I've been thinking about this for a long time," I explain, kissing her lightly. "How I would handle it, if you and I…" Suddenly, my mind registers something she said earlier, and I pull back, grinning.

"Did I hear you call me your boyfriend, Tris?"

She looks away nervously and shrugs. "Not exactly," she says evasively, and my smile widens.

"Why?" she asks. "Do you want me to?"

_Of course._ But unexpectedly I'm nervous too, and no answer comes. My hands caress the back of her neck, and my thumbs lift her chin so I can lean forward and rest my forehead on hers. I close my eyes and breathe her air, share her space, trying to figure out what is making me so nervous, what is keeping my voice from working.

I don't know how to be anyone's boyfriend, I realize. Today certainly proved that. And Tris deserves better. The Abnegation in me says I should let her go, let her apply that word to someone more deserving. But I want this so much, want her so much. For a change, the Dauntless in me wins, and I breathe, "Yes."

But of course she can't use that word yet, at least not publically, not when it might get back to Eric. And then I'm worrying again, concerned that I wasn't convincing enough, that Jeanine will make him take another look, and he'll realize how brilliant Tris is. "You think we convinced him you're just a silly girl?" I ask doubtfully.

"I hope so," she says with more confidence than I feel. "Sometimes it helps to be small. I'm not sure I convinced the Erudite, though."

The alarm grows stronger, flaring along my nerves. Jeanine is watching Dauntless closely right now, as they prepare for war. I think of the plans I discovered on the Dauntless computers, revealing information about an attack on Abnegation. The plans didn't reveal key details, so I don't know exactly how they're going to do it, but somehow the Divergent must be a threat to them, because they're hunting us down, killing us. Tris needs to know what she's up against. She also needs to know about the threat to her family. I give her a serious look and say, "There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" she asks.

"Not now," I answer immediately, looking around to make sure no one can possibly hear us. This is something I should show her, and something we should discuss well away from here. "Meet me back here at 11:30. Don't tell anyone where you're going."

She nods, and I leave her there, returning to the building, my head full of worry again. This day feels like it's lasted forever, and I still have a shift in the control room ahead of me, and then I need to tell Tris that war is coming.

As I walk through the Pit, I catch Lauren's eyes and know she's still keeping a look-out for Eric. I should go talk to her, but I'm suddenly too exhausted to face another conversation. So, I just nod and give her a tight smile. Her whole body relaxes with relief, and she returns the nod, grinning.

I start toward my apartment but then think better of it. What I really need is to work out some aggression, so I head to the training room. For a long moment, I stand with my hands on the punching bag, just letting my limbs tremble, releasing some of the stress. Then, I go through a full workout, punching, kicking, striking with my elbows and open hands. The movement helps, and by the time I leave, I feel calm and focused again.

It's dinner time, but I shower quickly first, washing off the sweat from the workout, and change my clothes. Dinner is rushed as a result, since I need to get to the control room. I don't have time to talk to anyone, which is perhaps just as well. I doubt I'm much of a conversationalist right now.

Jeff is ready to leave when I get there. I'm pushing on late, and he's annoyed, barely greeting me before heading out the door. That works too, and I spend the next four hours in blissful boredom. Absolutely nothing of interest happens on the monitors, so I don't even have to erase any footage or report any problems.

When I leave, I race to the train tracks, knowing I barely have time to get there. Tris is waiting where we talked earlier, and I grab her hand, pulling her with me to the tracks and then onto the passing train. My fingers hold her elbows gently to help her balance against the bumpy motion. The trains run faster at night.

"What is it you need to tell me?" she shouts over the rattle of the train and the raging wind, but I shake my head.

"Not yet." I don't want to start this conversation any sooner than I have to.

I sink to the floor of the train, leaning against the wall, feeling again the full exhaustion of this day. My hands are still on Tris, so she drops with me and sits facing me, her legs to the side as she leans on one hand. She's very close to me.

My hands caress her cheeks for a moment, and then my fingers wrap around her ears and pull her face gently to mine. We kiss, a long, sweet kiss.

The train slows, screeching loudly, and I know we're approaching the middle of the city. We still have time, so I kiss her again, on the lips, on her neck, savoring her taste. I feel a sigh of pleasure pass through her.

A sudden lurch knocks her off balance, and her hand lands on my hip. My breath catches, and I wait for her to pull away, but instead she goes the opposite direction. Swinging a leg over me, she sits on my lap and kisses me more boldly. Everything inside me awakens, and I sit up straighter, an overwhelming mix of pleasure, excitement, and longing flowing through me. It feels indescribably good.

My hands are pressing behind her shoulders, then sliding down her spine to the small of her back, as we kiss more and more deeply. My breathing is coming fast and hard, and I finally have to stop kissing her to get more air into me. My eyes lock on her, and my hands lift of their own accord to begin unzipping her jacket.

The sight of her tattoos finally distracts me, and I pull away a little, forcing my breathing to slow. I focus on the tattoos, really looking at them for the first time. I begin to feel in control again as I brush my fingertips over the ink and smile.

"Birds," I say, remembering her first simulation. "Are they crows? I keep forgetting to ask."

"Ravens," she answers. "One for each member of my family. You like them?" I do, but the answer reminds me why we're here, and I don't know what to say. So, I don't answer aloud. Instead, I pull her closer and kiss each bird in turn, slowly, deeply. Her body relaxes into the sensation, and I almost forget why we're here, almost miss the sight we're here to see.

I touch her cheek, murmuring, "I hate to say this, but we have to get up now." She nods, unwilling to open her eyes, but finally she stands, pulling me to my feet, and I lead her to the open train door. It's past midnight now, so the street lights are off, and most of the city is dark. I point to the only exceptions, a cluster of lights marking Erudite headquarters.

"Apparently the city ordinances don't mean anything to them," I say, "because their lights will be on all night."

She frowns and responds, "No one else has noticed?"

"I'm sure they have, but they haven't done anything to stop it. It may be because they don't want to cause a problem over something so small, but it made me wonder what the Erudite are doing that requires night light."

I lean against the wall and face Tris. "Two things you should know about me. The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general. It is in my nature to expect the worst of them. And the second is that I am unexpectedly good with computers." She nods, and I continue.

"A few weeks ago, before training started, I was at work and I found a way into the Dauntless secure files. Apparently we are not as skilled as the Erudite are at security, and what I discovered was what looked like war plans. Thinly veiled commands, supply lists, maps. Things like that. And those files were sent by Erudite."

"War?" Tris asks, her voice serious but not shocked. "War on Abnegation?" It certainly didn't take her long to figure that out.

I link my hands with hers, trying to provide some comfort as I say, "The faction that controls the government. Yes."

"All those reports are supposed to stir up dissension against Abnegation," I continue, letting my eyes move over the city. "Evidently the Erudite now want to speed up the process. I have no idea what to do about it… or what could even be done."

Tris looks confused and says, "But why would Erudite team up with Dauntless?" I don't even have time to start an answer before her eyes widen, and I can tell she's figured it out. "They're going to use us," she says.

I nod slowly, saying, "I wonder how they plan to get us to fight."

For a moment, I almost expect an answer, having seen Tris' brilliance in action so many times, but she just murmurs, "I don't know," and I realize suddenly how tired she is. This has been a long, terrible day, and we're both too exhausted to think. We'll have to figure this out later.

I pull her back to a sitting position, letting her rest her head in the crook of my shoulder, my arm around her, holding her close. We almost fall asleep, almost miss our stop, but somehow we make it off the train and safely inside. I walk her to the dormitory in silence, as I did last night, but with a very different mood surrounding us this time.

As we stand outside the door, we hold each others' eyes for a long moment. Finally, I shake my head a bit and say, "Don't worry. We'll figure something out." She just nods, almost asleep on her feet, and I give her a gentle kiss. "Good night," I say, and then I lean close, my lips moving on her ear as I whisper, "girlfriend."

A shiver passes through her, and I can tell she feels the same electricity I do.

"You know," she murmurs, "I could get really used to hearing that." A light laugh goes through me as I move my lips down from her ear and along her jaw.

"But not yet," she adds, her tone becoming mischievous. "I know you'll have a hard time believing this, what with your trusting nature and all, but it would be dangerous to go saying that in front of people right now."

My laugh deepens as I pull back and meet her eyes. "I never would have guessed," I comment, and then I kiss her again, a last sweet kiss for the night.

_**Please take a moment to write a review. This chapter has more original material than the previous ones, and I could use feedback on what worked and what didn't. Also, I'm going to add some chapters to Part 1 next, so if you're following this story and not Part 1, please add it to your list so you'll see the next updates. Thanks!  
**_


	5. Chapters 34-38 (Tobias' Simulation)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world, any of the characters, or the dialogue that's in the books. Right now, I wish I did, because I would have made some very different choices in the 3rd book, but it's a moot point. Those all belong to Veronica Roth._

_Author's Note: I wrote this chapter prior to reading the 3rd book but didn't post it because I was still finishing the next chapter and wanted to post them together. After reading Allegiant, I debated whether or not to modify this or even post it, but I ultimately decided to keep it as I'd already written it and to post it for anyone who still cares to read it. Assuming you've read Allegiant, I'm afraid you'll find this more than a little bittersweet..._

Tris leans on me heavily, barely able to stay on her feet. There are guns pressed to our backs as the Dauntless soldiers force us toward Abnegation headquarters. My father works there – used to work there, I guess I should say now – but I rarely entered the building. This isn't the best time to start.

I badly want to fight back, to find some way to prevent more people from dying, but I can't bring myself to abandon Tris, and she's too badly wounded to get far right now. The blood is still flowing freely from her shoulder, and I know she needs medical attention soon, very soon. So, for now, I have to wait, and hope that they treat their prisoners well.

The guards escort us into an office where Jeanine sits at the desk, talking on the phone. I don't know whose office she took, but it doesn't really matter. The regular occupant is probably dead now.

Jeanine's voice is aggravated as she says, "Well, send some of them _back_ on the train, then. It needs to be well guarded, it's the most important part – I'm not talk – I have to go." She hangs up and turns her attention to us.

"Divergent rebels," one of the soldiers says unnecessarily.

"Yes, I can see that," she states as she takes off her glasses and examines us carefully. Pointing to Tris, she adds, "_You_, I expected. All the trouble with your aptitude test results made me suspicious from the beginning." I wonder what trouble she means, but it's not important now.

She looks at me and continues. "You, Tobias – or should I call you Four? – managed to elude me. Everything about you checked out: test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here you are nonetheless." Apparently, my father's instructions helped me more than I realized. It's probably the only good thing I learned from him.

Jeanine folds her hands in front of her, leaning her chin on them as she asks, "Perhaps you could explain to me how that is?" Yeah, I'll be sure to do that.

"You're the genius," I reply coldly. "Why don't you tell me?"

She smiles, probably enjoying the opportunity to talk, to show how smart she is. "My theory is that you really do belong in Abnegation. That your Divergence is weaker." She's right that I'm Abnegation at my core, but she's wrong about the rest. My test results look normal because I faked them, because my father warned me I would be aware under the simulations and told me how to behave when that happened. She clearly doesn't realize that, and I'm certainly not going to tell her.

"Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning," I spit. "Consider me awed." Tris looks at me, and I can see the pain in her eyes, can see that she's fading. I need to end this conversation and get her medical care. I decide to push Jeanine; hopefully, it will cause her to act human to show me I'm wrong.

"Now that your intelligence has been verified," I state, "you might want to get on with killing us. You have a lot of Abnegation leaders to murder, after all."

Jeanine smiles calmly, unbothered by my words and clearly in no hurry. Tris slumps against me, and I slide an arm around her waist, keeping her upright. She can't hang on much longer.

"Don't be silly. There is no rush," Jeanine says casually, as if people aren't dying while we talk, as if Tris isn't bleeding to death as I hold her. "You are both here for an extremely important purpose. You see, it perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that. I thought I might have, with the last batch, but as you know, I was wrong. Luckily I have another batch to test."

"Why bother?" Tris asks, surprising me. I thought she was too far gone to be following the conversation.

Jeanine's eyes move to Tris, and she says with a smirk, "I have had a question since I began the Dauntless project, and it is this. Why are most of the Divergent weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from _Abnegation_, of all factions?"

The comment adds to my anger, and I can't help responding. "Weak-willed? It requires a _strong_ will to manipulate a simulation, last time I checked. Weak-willed is mind-controlling an army because it's too hard for you to train one yourself."

"I am not a fool," Jeanine states flatly. "A faction of intellectuals is no army. We are tired of being dominated by a bunch of self-righteous idiots who reject wealth and advancement, but we couldn't do this on our own. And your Dauntless leaders were all too happy to oblige me if I guaranteed them a place in our new, improved government."

I snort. "Improved?"

"Yes, improved," Jeanine continues. "Improved, and working toward a world in which people will live in wealth, comfort, and prosperity."

Tris speaks again, her voice slow and heavy. She's barely staying conscious. "At whose expense? All that wealth… doesn't come from nowhere."

"Currently, the factionless are a drain on our resources," Jeanine answers. "As is Abnegation. I am sure that once the remains of your old faction are absorbed into the Dauntless army, Candor will cooperate and we will finally be able to get on with things."

The answer is so evil, so utterly inhumane, I'm speechless for a moment. Then, the anger surges out of control, and I shout, "Get on with things? Make no mistake. You will be dead before the day is out, you—"

But Jeanine interrupts me. "Perhaps if you could control your temper, you would not be in this situation to begin with, Tobias."

I snap back, "I'm in this situation because you put me here, the second you orchestrated an attack against innocent people."

An almost genuine laugh bursts from Jeanine. "Innocent people? I find that a little funny, coming from you. I would expect Marcus' son to understand that not all those people are innocent. Can you tell me honestly that you wouldn't be happy to discover that your father was killed in the attack?"

I grit my teeth, hating that she knows who I am, hating that she knows about my father, hating that she's right in this particular statement. But she's certainly not right about anything else she's doing, so I force myself to answer. "No, but at least his evil didn't involve the widespread manipulation of an entire faction and the systematic murder of every political leader we have."

For a few seconds, we simply glare at each other, and then Jeanine clears her throat and continues. "What I was going to say is that soon, dozens of the Abnegation and their young children will be my responsibility to keep in order, and it does not bode well for me that a large number of them may be Divergent like yourselves, incapable of being controlled by the simulations."

Dozens? That's all she expects to survive, and she plans to keep those few survivors in a simulation for what, the rest of their lives? I feel too sick to even answer.

She continues, "Therefore, it was necessary that I develop a new form of simulation to which they are not immune. I have been forced to reassess my own assumptions. That is where you come in. You are correct to say that you are strong-willed. I cannot control your will. But there are a few things I can control."

Tris leans her head on my shoulder, getting weaker from blood loss. For the first time, it truly sinks in that we might not survive this, that Tris might die today. The thought sends fear through me like I've never felt before, along with determination. I can't let that happen. I can't let Tris die.

Jeanine's voice breaks through the terror. "I can control what you see and hear, so I created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to manipulate your will. Those who refuse to accept our leadership must be closely monitored." She turns to me again, adding, "You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however," and she turns toward Tris with a smile that freezes everything inside me, "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of this meeting."

The panic and terror reach a new level, something I didn't even know existed. It's as if my fear landscape was a playground, my worst fears nothing but games compared with this. I meet Tris' eyes, unable to speak as I look at the tears she blinks back.

"No," I finally manage to say, my voice trembling badly. I shake my head. "I would rather die."

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter," Jeanine says in a light, casual tone, as if she hasn't done anything wrong, as if she isn't sentencing Tris to death. She's right that I don't have much choice, but I do have one. Jeanine wants to try her new serum on someone. If I'm not available, she'll treat Tris – fix her up to try the serum on her. I don't know what comes after this life, if anything, but I do know there are some things, some people, worth dying for. For me, Tris is at the top of that list.

My arm pulls away from Tris' waist so I can take her face in my hands, and I kiss her. I kiss her like it's the last kiss of my life, the last time I'll ever feel anything good. It's also my last chance to tell her I love her, but I don't say the words, not with what I'm about to do. I won't leave her with that guilt.

Instead, the moment I pull away from Tris, I lunge across the desk and seize Jeanine's throat with both hands, squeezing with the full strength of desperation. Either I kill her, or the guards kill me. There are no other choices that let Tris live.

But the guards don't kill me. Instead, two of them grab me, pulling and twisting and hitting with irresistible force. They finally manage to rip me away from Jeanine and shove me to the floor, grinding my face into the carpet. One of them sits with his knees on my shoulders and his hands on my head. I'm still struggling with everything I have, but I've taught fighting enough to know that there's no escape from this position. I've failed, failed in the most important moment of my life, in the only moment that really matters.

Over my own struggles, I hear a mad scramble as Tris tries to fight, too, but she's in no condition to win right now, and the other guards subdue her quickly.

Jeanine is coughing and sputtering but is clearly alive. I hear the sound of a desk drawer opening, hear Jeanine walking toward me. It's a slight distraction for the guards, and I take the opportunity to bring my elbow back hard, managing to hit the guard who's pinning me to the floor. He responds by slamming my head violently with the butt of his gun, and for a moment everything spins. My body goes slack, and my vision doubles.

I must black out for a bit, because then I'm waking up, groggy and disoriented. Time has passed, but I don't know how much, and it's a struggle to remember exactly what happened. There was a fight, but I can't quite recall who I was fighting or why. It was something to do with Abnegation, with Jeanine, with Tris. _Tris._ She's in danger. I have to act now.

I struggle to my feet, finding it difficult to balance. My fingers reach up, and I feel a painful lump that's just starting to grow on the side of my head. I must have a concussion; that must be why I'm so disoriented, why the room is spinning in front of me. But I force myself to focus. Tris needs my help.

Finally, the room becomes clear, and I can see that Tris is gone. They must have taken her away already. Panic flares through my confusion, helps to clear it. Jeanine is standing against the wall, still recovering from my choke hold. Before the guards can stop me, I leap at her, wrapping my fingers around her neck again, determined to kill her or make them kill me. But I'm too weak, too dizzy, and a guard pulls me back, keeps me away from her. For another moment, I struggle fiercely, glaring at her.

"Get him out of my sight," she says hoarsely. "Give him the serum and let me know if it works."

The guard hauls me out of the room and down the hallway, and I temporarily cease fighting, waiting until we're out of Jeanine's earshot. At best, I have one more chance to escape in time to save Tris; I have to do everything I can to make it work.

As we round the corner, the guard drops his hold and shifts beside me so I can see him. It's my best opportunity to escape, and I'm about to strike when I realize the guard is Uriah. His face is clear, urgent, and I remember that he's Divergent too.

"We have to get out of here, _now_," he says fiercely.

"No," I respond in a firm voice. "Not without Tris. Where did they take her?"

The world ends with the look on Uriah's face. There are tears in his eyes as he whispers, "I'm sorry. I tried, but I didn't get here in time. They… they executed her."

My body goes limp, all the strength leaving it at once, and I slump against the wall for support, gasping. He must be wrong. Somehow, she must still be alive. She must.

Uriah gulps hard and talks through his tears, his tone increasingly urgent. "I know it's hard, but we have to go now. People are still dying. We have to stop the simulation." He tries to hold my gaze, but I look away. Some part of me knows he's right, but a larger part of me doesn't care anymore. What can be worth saving in a world without Tris?

And then I remember her words as she left the train, as I urged her to run. _"My family."_ I have to save her parents. It's the only way left to help her, to save a piece of her, to honor her.

I've spent my life pushing my emotions down, forcing myself to face the unbearable, but at this moment it's the hardest thing I've ever done. I close my eyes and focus on slowing my breathing, pulling air into my reluctant lungs and letting it shudder back out of me. One, two, three times. When I open my eyes, I'm numb. There is no feeling left in me, not even anger. There is nothing except the mission.

"Where do we need to go?" I ask.

"Back to Dauntless headquarters," he answers quietly. "I heard them talking. They're using our control room to run this, but I don't know where that is."

"I do." My voice is deadly.

* * *

The hardest part is getting out of Abnegation headquarters and to the train tracks without being seen, but I know all the hidden paths through this area. I spent my childhood using them to avoid prying eyes, to hide from my father and to hide the evidence of his beatings from everyone else.

The trains are still running, and deserted. We swing into an empty car and crouch out of sight as I try to form a plan. We have one gun and an unknown number of Dauntless soldiers between us and the control room. I take the gun, sparing Uriah the decision of whether to use it, and how. Most of those soldiers will be under the influence of the simulation and won't know what they're doing. I don't want to kill them, but I also know that others will die for every moment I delay. Tris' parents might die. If I had killed Eric and Maria earlier, when I had the chance, Tris might still be alive. I won't hesitate again.

We get off the train on the roof of Dauntless headquarters and force the door to the stairs open. Years of being afraid of heights has made me an expert on this particular door. I haven't leaped into the net since my first day here.

The stairs let us out near the elevator that leads to the control room, and we're able to cross the space without being caught. But I know there will be guards as we leave the elevator. I raise the gun in preparation, but Uriah stops me.

"Can't we fool them?" he asks. "Like I did before?"

"Maybe," I answer hesitantly. It seems risky, and we only have one chance at this. I can't fail again. But I also don't want to kill if I don't have to, so I hold the gun by my side, ready but below eye level, as we both fix our features into a glazed, expressionless look.

Uriah exits from the elevator first, walking toward the guards calmly, as if there's no doubt he's there to join them. To my surprise, they accept his presence – and mine as I walk past them and into the control room. It's deserted, but it's easy to tell that the simulation is indeed being run from here. One of the monitors has code streaming down it.

No one stops me as I pull the chair back and sit at the computer. It's hard to believe, but Jeanine's arrogance must have blinded her to the possibility that someone would know to come here, that they'd know how to hide from the simulation-bound, that they'd know how to stop the program. I fervently hope that arrogance leads to her death by the end of the day.

* * *

The simulation proves to be incredibly difficult to stop. Every time I feel I'm getting close, I run into another block built into the code. I've never seen anything so secure, so impossible to hack. But I have to keep trying. There's no choice.

I must be deeper in thought than I realize, because I don't hear the soldier approaching. Uriah doesn't stop her and doesn't warn me – I don't know why, only that she's suddenly there, pointing a gun at me.

I stand, raising my own weapon fast, but I can't fire. She looks awake, so I know she must be in on all this, must have been kept out of the simulation, but in a way that makes it harder to shoot. It makes her more human. And it certainly doesn't help that she's small, Tris' size. The comparison sears through me like flame.

"Drop your weapon," I say fiercely, but she doesn't. "Drop your weapon," I repeat, "or I'll fire."

She begins to move toward me, her gun still raised. I don't want to kill her, but she's leaving me no choice.

"Drop your weapon!" I shout.

Instead, she runs at me, and I realize she was bluffing. Her gun must be out of ammunition. She grabs my wrist, trying to wrestle the gun from me, and I fire instinctively. But she must have sensed my motion, because she ducks out the way in time. Before I can adjust my position, she kicks me in the ribs and twists my wrist again. The gun falls from my fingers, and she dives for it. I lunge after her, grabbing her and pulling her aside, keeping her from reaching the weapon. She's a good fighter for someone her size, very good, and again I'm reminded painfully of Tris. But I can't let her stop me.

My fist connects with her jaw, hard, and she cringes away, throwing up her hands to protect her face. The motion reminds me of myself, trying to stay safe when my father would hit me. For just a moment, I pause, and she kicks the gun back with her foot, moving it farther away from both of us. She's clever. As I'm thinking that, she aims a kick at my stomach, but I'm too fast for her, too good at fighting. I catch her foot in mid-air and use it to throw her to the floor, and I bring my own foot back, ready to kick her in the ribs. But I hesitate again, thinking of Eric – no, it was Peter – kicking Tris in the side when he attacked her. I shake my head, trying to clear it. I need to stop thinking about her, need to focus.

The soldier rolls onto her knees and reaches for the gun. My fingers twist into her hair, wrenching her back and smashing her head into the wall. Again, I think of Tris. I don't even know why this time. It's almost as if her voice is whispering through my mind. _Stop it_, I tell myself firmly. _She's not here. She's…_ but I can't finish that thought.

The woman kicks me, twisting out of my grasp while I'm distracted, and launches herself at the gun again. This time, she succeeds in reaching it, and she flips onto her back and points it at me. I move at her, fast, hoping it takes her a moment to summon the courage to fire. She climbs to her feet, still aiming at me, but she doesn't shoot, and I keep moving. I have to stop her _now_.

Then I reach her, grab for her, but she does something so unexpected, I don't know how to respond. She turns the gun in her hands and presses it into my fingers, hands it to me. My muscles push the barrel against her forehead automatically, but my mind freezes as confusion fills me. Why didn't she shoot me? Why is she giving me the weapon after fighting so hard for it? Mixed in with the confusion is something else, something I can't identify. _I don't understand what's happening. This isn't what soldiers do._

She reaches out and places her palm over my heart. She doesn't try to push me away, doesn't try to fight. She just holds it there, even as I click the bullet into the chamber.


	6. Chapter 39 (Leaving Dauntless)

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent world, any of the characters, or the dialogue that's in the books. Right now, I wish I did, because I would have made some very different choices in the 3rd book, but it's a moot point. Those all belong to Veronica Roth._

_Author's Note: I started this chapter prior to reading the 3rd book. After reading Allegiant, I debated whether or not to finish it and whether or not to change the voice, but I ultimately decided to finish it the way I'd already started it. Assuming you've read Allegiant, I'm afraid you'll find this more than a little bittersweet..._

I can't shoot. This doesn't make any sense. She's not acting like a soldier, not acting like an enemy. She stands there with her hand on my chest, almost caressing me, like she's trying to connect with me, to show me she's human.

It strikes me hard how much her slight build is like Tris', and I swear I hear her voice saying my name. But she's gone. I know she is, even if I still can't make myself believe it, can't even begin to accept it. I close my eyes, trying to clear my head, still holding the gun firmly, but no longer focused on it. Instead, my thoughts are shifting. Something isn't right here.

The soldier steps closer to me, carefully, and wraps her arms around me, embracing me like a friend, like a lover. _Like Tris._ My heart is racing now, because suddenly it makes sense. Suddenly, I understand. I'm in a simulation. Jeanine put me under it when I was on the floor, when I thought they had knocked me out for a moment. And that means that everything since then was fake, and this is…

The gun drops from my hand, and I'm grabbing her by the shoulders, pushing her back to see her face, my breathing rough and uneven. She cries out, and I know the voice, and then I can see her, finally see her face. The life returns to me so abruptly it's painful.

"Tris." I kiss her hard, pulling her fiercely into my arms, off the floor, holding her so close there's no room for anything between us. _She's here. She's alive. Somehow, she survived, and found me, and brought me back to her._

I set her down, my eyes taking in every inch of her face, desperate for reassurance that it's truly her. My fingers trace her forehead, her eyebrows, her cheeks, her lips. God, those lips. It's really her.

Some primal sound of relief and pain and joy and love comes out of me, and I'm kissing her again as my eyes sting with tears. I haven't cried since I was nine, but I don't care in the slightest right now. All that matters is that I'm holding Tris.

She pulls herself against me again, burying her face into my shirt, pressing against my chest as she cries. Her body sags a little, and I hold her close, supporting her. In my joy, I forgot that she was shot, forgot how much blood she lost. I can't imagine what she went through to get here. _And then I almost killed her._ The thought is so horrifying I have to push it away, can't even admit to its presence.

"How did you do it?" she asks, talking into my chest.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. And then I realize that the whispers I kept hearing, that kept making me pause, were her, and I add, "I just heard your voice."

For a long moment, we stand there, holding each other. She may be having trouble supporting her own weight – I wouldn't know, because I can't let go of her enough to see. But finally she pulls back, and I manage to release her. She turns toward the screens, and I see them, really see them, for the first time. They look much like they did before, but now I don't know what I was doing when I thought I was trying to disable the program.

"Was _I_ running the simulation?" I ask. It's a horrible thought.

"I don't know if you were running it so much as monitoring it," she says softly. "It's already complete. I have no idea how, but Jeanine made it so it could work on its own."

I shake my head, not sure if she's right or not but desperately wanting to believe her. I decide to let myself. "It's… incredible," I finally say. "Terrible, evil… but incredible."

Tris' eyes focus on one of the screens, and she shouts urgently, "Tobias, now!"

I don't take the time to look at what she saw. Instead, I race to the computer bank and begin shutting down the program. It's incredibly complicated, but now that I can actually see it, I'm sure I can stop it. My fingers fly wildly, my mind racing even faster as I force my way into the program and disable it.

"Tobias," Tris says again, even more urgently, just as I'm pressing the last key. I turn to the monitors, seeing people in Dauntless black going still, looking around, dropping their weapons. A fresh wave of relief goes through me. It's over. I did it.

Tris collapses into a chair, releasing a sigh as her entire body sags. I want to comfort her, want her to comfort me, but this isn't the time. Right now, I need to get the data. It will be backed up elsewhere, I'm sure, but if I can get the hard drive that's been running it, they won't be able to resume it soon enough, and the transmitters will go past their working time. Then, they'll need new transmitters to start it again. That's the best I can do.

I crouch next to the computer, ripping off the case and beginning to remove the hard drive. "I have to get the data," I explain to Tris, "or they'll just start the simulation again." With a final wrench, I yank the drive free, holding it up and saying, "Got it." I offer it to Tris. After all, she did far more than I did to obtain it. She shoves it into her back pocket as she climbs unsteadily to her feet.

"We have to leave," she says, her voice exhausted but determined. She must be running on pure adrenaline at this point, probably has been for hours. How long was I under the simulation?

She points to a screen that shows Dauntless fighting each other. Those who were under the simulation are in open battle with those who ran it – shoving each other, fighting, running, shooting, dying.

"Yes, we do," I say tensely. My arm wraps around Tris, avoiding her injury, and I pull her close. "Come on."

We walk toward the elevator, but as we enter the hallway, I see dead bodies on the floor. My first thought is that Uriah must be among them, but then I remember that he was never really here. He was part of my simulation. One of these dead guards must be who I thought was him, and Tris must have killed him to reach me, must have killed them all. _She killed them but not me._ I don't know why.

A strangled cry of grief emerges from her as she pauses next to one of the bodies, and my eyes drop to the still form. With a jolt, I recognize her father. I thought I was stopping the simulation to save her parents, and instead he died helping her reach me.

Tris vomits against the wall, overcome for a moment by pain and grief. She crouches, holding her hand over her mouth as she tries not to sob, tries to regain control. I should help her, should comfort her, but my body is rigid with horror and guilt. I was supposed to stop this. Tris is alive – thank God for that – but I failed. I couldn't save her, couldn't save her father, couldn't even save myself. She did that.

I see her breathing hard, and then she stands, pulling herself together enough to continue. My muscles unlock, and I join her in the elevator. There are no words in me yet, but if she has the strength to move, I must as well.

The elevator lets us out on the glass floor, into a room filled with shouting Dauntless. Confusion and anger surround us, press into us from all sides as we make our way through the crowd. Tris looks around as if she's trying to find someone, but I don't know who, and she can't hear me over the noise. I guide her out of the building into the bright sunlight. Again, I wonder how long I was under the simulation. Is this even the same day?

Tris' brother, Caleb, runs toward us and hugs Tris tightly. He must have left Erudite to help his family. Somehow, they knew to come here.

"Dad?" he asks Tris, and fingers of guilt tighten around my chest again. She shakes her head, unable to answer.

"Well," Caleb continues with a small sob. "He would have wanted it that way." For a moment, I don't understand, and then I do. Their mother must have died too. My eyes close as the guilt tightens its grip even harder. I didn't save either of them. For all I know, I contributed to their deaths. Why didn't I kill Eric and Maria when I had the chance? Maybe I could have prevented all this.

I take a step closer to them, unsure what to say but needing to be closer to Tris, needing the comfort of her presence. A movement catches my attention, and I stop in mid-step, my entire body going rigid as all thought leaves me. My father is right in front of me, walking toward me. _What is he doing here?_

He walks up to me and embraces me as I stand frozen in shock. A lifetime of fear and agony, of bad memory after bad memory fills me in a single instant, rooting my feet to the ground in an attack of panic so intense I can't even remember how to breathe. After everything I've just been through, he shouldn't be able to affect me this way, but somehow he does.

"Son," he says with a sigh that is supposed to be relief. Even in this moment, I know it's fake, like every sign of caring he's ever shown for me. I wince, but I still can't regain control over my limbs, can't move away from him.

Then, Tris pushes her way between us, her back against my chest as she shoves Marcus away from me. "Hey," she says roughly. "Get away from him." Her presence lets me breathe again, lets thought enter my mind.

"Stay away," she hisses at my father. After everything she's faced, and exhausted as she is, she's protecting me. She's so much stronger than I am. In this moment, I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. I'm ashamed of my weakness but proud of her. No, I'm amazed by her.

Caleb tries to intervene, asking, "Beatrice, what are you doing?" Of course he trusts my father. Almost everyone does. He's spent his life hiding the monster inside him from everyone except me and my mother.

Caleb's incredulity restores my voice, and I speak softly, just her name. "Tris." Saying it gives me strength.

Marcus is staring at Tris with his false expression, his public face that is filled with innocence, but he doesn't fool her.

"Not all those Erudite articles were full of lies," she says fiercely.

"What are you talking about?" my father asks, his voice quiet and wounded. "I don't know what you've been told, Beatrice, but– "

She interrupts him in a voice filled with cold fury. "The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it. Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care."

Her words release the lock on my muscles, and I slip my hands around her arms, squeezing gratefully. I can't believe how lucky I am to have her in my life, to have her still alive and here with me.

"We have to go," I say softly, my voice still unsteady. "The train should be here any second." She moves with me toward the tracks, and Caleb and Marcus walk with us. I'm vaguely aware that Peter follows, too. It's hard to imagine how this particular group ended up together.

"Sorry," Tris mutters to me, surprising me. What could she possibly think she did wrong?

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I answer firmly, lacing my fingers tightly with hers, feeling her strength ease the shaking in my body.

"If we take the train in the opposite direction, out of the city instead of in, we can get to Amity headquarters," Tris says. "That's where the others went." I don't know which others she means, but I accept her decision without hesitation. She's clearly in charge right now, and she's certainly been doing a better job than I have.

"What about Candor?" Caleb asks. "What do you think they'll do?" No one answers. I don't know enough about what has happened to respond, and apparently nobody else is sure one way or the other. Abnegation must be destroyed, scattered, if we're only looking to Amity and Candor for help. I try to push the thought away; I don't have time to wallow in guilt right now.

Tris is beginning to fade, finally overwhelmed by everything she's done, everything she's been through. I pick her up, holding her close the way I did after Peter attacked her. I'm uncomfortably aware of his presence nearby.

When the train arrives, I set Tris on her feet so she can board it. We jog beside the train, and Tris throws herself into it, landing on her uninjured shoulder. I pull myself on, making sure she's safe, and then help Caleb climb clumsily aboard. My father and Peter make their own way into the car. For a brief moment, I think about blocking their way, preventing them from joining us, but instead I sit down next to Tris, placing myself between her and them, turning my back on them, pretending they don't exist.

I pull her close to me, bending my knees to block the others' eyes so we have a private space of sorts. This way, I can look just at her.

"My parents," she whispers. "They died today. They died for _me_."

For a moment, I feel the weight of guilt and failure again, but her words trigger another line of thought. Abnegation has teachings on when to sacrifice yourself for another, and perhaps she can draw some comfort from those.

"They loved you," I say gently. "To them there was no better way to show you." She nods slowly, looking away as she thinks about that idea. I think about it too, but it leads me in a direction I wasn't anticipating. She killed people today – that's clear – but she didn't kill me, not to save herself, not even to save others.

"You nearly died today," I whisper, forcing the words out. I need to know why she did what she did. "I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?"

"I couldn't do that," she says simply. "It would have been like shooting myself."

There are too many emotions attached to that answer, and they all swirl through me at once. Guilt, fear, gratitude, love, anger. I made my choice when I attacked Jeanine. If only one of us can live, I want it to be Tris, yet she nearly died to save me, just as her parents died to save her. _I'm not worth that._ But her answer makes me feel like I could be, and in that instant I'm strong enough to finally tell her.

I lean close, my mouth almost touching hers. As I'm about to speak, it occurs to me that she might not be ready to hear this, so I moderate my words.

"I have something to tell you," I say softly. She runs her fingers along my hand, and I continue. "I might be in love with you."

Immediately, I feel like the words are too intense, so I smile a little and add, "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."

She smiles too and murmurs, "That's sensible of you. We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."

I laugh, feeling some of the tension leave me as I do, and I slide my nose along her jaw, losing myself in her scent, her intoxicating presence. My lips press gently behind her ear.

"Maybe I'm already sure, and I just don't want to frighten you."

She laughs lightly, just a little. "Then you should know better," she says.

"Fine," I finally respond, a boldness entering me. "Then I love you."

She presses her mouth to mine, kissing me with a deep passion that pulls everything inside me toward her. For a long time, we kiss like that, and I forget that the others are there, forget that there's a war outside the train, forget that we no longer have a home or a position in an uncertain world. All I do is hold Tris to me and kiss her, this amazing woman I love, and I know that nothing else matters. Nothing else will ever matter.

_Author's Note: I haven't decided at this point if I'm going to continue to write in the Divergent world or not. If you have a strong opinion about that, please write a review with what you'd like to see - I can just leave the story as-is, or I can continue to fill in chapters in Divergent, or I can write an alternative to the 3rd book (sorry to anyone who liked it, but there are so many plot holes in Allegiant, I can't get myself to keep any part of it, so I would start fresh from the end of Insurgent if I were to go there). Anyway, let me know if you want to read more. I'm not going to write more if no one wants to read it..._

_By the way, if you want to rant about the 3rd book, please don't do that here, since that isn't what this forum is for. You can reply to my Allegiant review on Amazon if you want (it's under the same username - Windchimed). I'd be happy to discuss it there. Thanks!_


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